Notebook for Fantastical Observations (16 page)

The Guide had said that trolls weren’t very smart.

FROM
B
OOK
2: T
HE
S
EEING
S
TONE

One winter there was a terrible storm. My dad got stuck sleeping in his office in New York because all the trains were snowed into place. When he called, he told me that the whole city had come to a standstill. Cars were buried so deep that they looked like white hills and the plows were barely making a dent. The only people out on the street were wading through the cold powder on foot.

My mother got snowed in one town over, at her sister’s house. They’d been out shopping or something and had managed to get back to Aunt Alicia’s place before the snow hit. She called me like a million times, talking me through making a frozen pizza and heating up some chicken noodle soup, asking me if I needed her to try to make it home. I told her I’d be fine.

I ate my pizza and soup in front of the television and watched cartoons until I was
too sleepy to keep my eyes open. But then, as I dragged myself off to my bedroom, I got kind of freaked out. I was in our ranch house all alone. In bed, I could hear sleet rattle off the roof and I could see jagged icicles hanging off the gutters outside my window.

When the cat jumped up on my bed, I yelped. I normally think of our tortoiseshell cat as annoying. She’s old, and when she meows, it always sounds like someone just stepped on her tail. But right then, even though she scared me, I was glad to have something with me. I petted her and she scooted up next to my body. Pretty soon I was asleep.

At first, when I woke up, I wasn’t sure why I’d woken. It seemed colder than before and there was a tinkling sound outside my window as the wind knocked the icicles off the gutter. But there was another sound too, like someone was messing with one of the windows.

I leaped out of bed—almost falling on the floor—and listened for the sound. It came
from my parent’s room. I walked in and saw a monster through the lacy curtains.

It had a long nose, as pointed and twisting as one of the icicles, set on a huge, green face. Tiny, beady eyes were barely visible beneath shaggy, dark green brows. Long, branch-like fingers scraped at the window, then pushed it up. Cold air blew into the room, and the cat—who’d been following me—skittered under the bed.

I flicked on the lights. The creature shuffled back from the window, but didn’t disappear. I could still see it out there, watching me through the curtains, gnashing its teeth.

“What are you?” I yelled. Despite my best intentions, my voice quavered.

“Troll,” it said.

I didn’t know anything about trolls. Nothing at all.

“The light will burn out,” the troll said in a voice that was full of whispers. “And then I will come in.”

“I’ll turn on another light,” I said.

“In a storm like this, your light could die. Anything could happen.” That soft, persuasive voice made me shudder. It was right, but I didn’t say so. I didn’t say anything.

“Let’s play a game while we wait,” it said. “I will tell you a riddle and then you tell me one.”

“What happens if I don’t get one right?” I asked.

“Maybe I’ll find the way to stop all the light.”

I squeaked with terror. Could it really cut the power to the house? “What happens if you don’t get one right?”

“Maybe I’ll find another house with a child that is not so clever.”

“Okay,” I said. What else could I say? “I’ll start.”

The troll nodded and I racked my brain for ideas. We used to play riddle games in school, but I only remembered some of them.

“What has eyes but can’t see?” I asked. It seemed kind of easy, but it was the only one I could think of.

The troll made a hissing laugh, like steam in a pot. “A potato. Now answer me this: The more you take away from me, the larger I get. What am I?”

I swallowed hard. My brain felt foggy with fear. I had to calm down and think this through. If something gets bigger when you take things away from it, then it must be a negative thing. A thing like nothing. A black hole. A hole! “A hole,” I said, slumping onto my parent’s bed with relief, sure that I had gotten it right.

The troll grunted. “Tell your riddle now.” Oh, right. I straightened up. “What kind of nut has no shell?” I actually thought that this one might have a chance. It wasn’t the hardest riddle in the world, but it did assume a certain degree of knowledge about food that I wasn’t sure the troll had.

It scowled and grumbled, and for a moment, I thought I had him. But then the troll grinned toothily. “Doughnut,” it whispered. “Now it is my turn. Here is my riddle: What drapes us all in white and bites without teeth?”

I shivered in the breeze from the open window and knew I had the answer. “Frost,” I said.

We went back and forth like that, answering and asking riddles all through the night. As dawn reddened the horizon, the troll asked me, “What can’t you keep until you give?”

For the first time, I had no idea. I thought it must be something that wasn’t tangible, something like love or hope, but I couldn’t think of what.

I tried to think, but as time wore on, I knew I had no idea what the answer was supposed to be.

“Do you give up?” the troll asked, leaning close.

“No,” I said quickly. “I’ll get it.”

The troll leaned forward, eagerness writ on its features. Long fingers snaked toward the open window, caressing the sill. “Now. Tell me the answer now or I win.”

“The answer is . . . ,” I said, stalling for seconds.

Just then, the first edge of the sun was visible in the distance. Light touched the troll and its skin went gray and hard. Fingers still reaching for me, it turned to stone. No longer did it look like a troll. Now it just seemed like a huge boulder that happened to be on our well-manicured lawn.

Just then, I found the answer that had eluded me. “A promise,” I said aloud.

—Judy R.

ANALYSIS: Trolls are thought to turn to stone in sunlight. It is said that some boulders that seem to have faces in them were once trolls.

—H. B. & T. D.

This creature only comes out at night:

Here’s what else I know about it:

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Riddles I’d use to outwit a troll:

Promises I never should have made:

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Promises I’ll keep forever:

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